Fresh from celebrating a career exhibit at the Academy Museum, Oscar-winning filmmaker Bong Joon Ho is navigating a sea of creative possibilities. While his first animated feature, the deep-sea adventure Ally, is making waves for a 2025 release, the director's mind is already swimming with ideas for his return to live-action cinema.
In an exclusive conversation, Bong revealed he currently has seven different concepts in development for his next non-animated project. This news comes as the director balances post-production on Ally, a story about a piglet squid dreaming of documentary fame, co-written with Jason Yu.
From Film Geek to Filmmaker
The interview offered a rare glimpse into Bong's cinematic passions. When pressed to name favorites, he struggled to choose between Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Raging Bull, praised Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, and highlighted Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth. His love for animation shone through with shout-outs to Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro.
This fanboy spirit was most evident when Bong discussed moderating a Q&A with David Fincher at his Academy Museum event. "I was so happy because before I was Director Bong, I was able to hang out with my favorite director as a film geek," he shared, describing the experience with a Korean term, seong-deok, which translates to "succeeding as a geek." He suggested that for directors like himself or Quentin Tarantino, filmmaking can be a "medium" to connect with artistic heroes.
The Unanswered Questions of 'Memories of Murder'
The conversation took a fascinating turn toward one of Bong's most acclaimed works, the 2003 crime thriller Memories of Murder. The film's famously ambiguous ending, where a detective stares directly into the camera, has haunted audiences for years. Bong connected this to his admiration for another masterpiece of uncertainty: John Carpenter's The Thing.
He revealed that the unresolved nature of Memories of Murder was deeply intentional, mirroring the frustrating, open-ended reality of the serial murder case it was based on. "Ultimately, we don't even know what John thinks about it," Bong said of Carpenter's classic, drawing a parallel to his own work. The film's chilling connection to the real-life Zodiac Killer case in the United States adds another layer to its enduring mystery, a topic Bong has explored in past interviews about the film's cross-cultural impact on true-crime storytelling.
For fans eager for more cinematic suspense, the landscape is rich with options. From the gritty family drama of Landman to the franchise power of shows like The Terminal List, thrilling narratives continue to captivate audiences.
What's Next for the Visionary Director?
With Ally on the horizon and a notebook full of live-action ideas, Bong Joon Ho's journey is far from over. His process reflects a unique blend of a fan's enthusiasm and a master's precision, whether he's crafting an animated ocean epic or pondering the grim puzzles of human nature that have defined so much of his filmography.
The director's ability to move seamlessly from the social satire of Parasite to family-friendly animation, while still nurturing darker, complex thrillers, proves his unparalleled range. As the film world waits to see which of his seven ideas surfaces first, one thing is certain: Bong Joon Ho remains one of the most inventive and unpredictable storytellers of our time, always leaving us wondering what comes next.
